The Washington Times reported that tribal leaders say the Obama Environmental Protection Agency is attempting to cheat Navajo Indians by convincing them to sign away rights to future claims following the agency’s Gold King Mine disaster.
These charges are only magnifying the White House’s public relations problems following the toxic spill, which threatens to disrupt critical waterways in the Southwest for many years to come.
Within days of the disaster, EPA officials began going door to door asking Navajos – some of whom do not speak English as their primary language – to sign a form offering to pay them some damages they have incurred from the spill so far. Signing the document waives any rights to return with new claims in the future if costs spiral higher than expected or if they encounter new, currently unforeseen fallout, Navajo President Russell Begaye told The Washington Times.
The toxic spill unleashed as much as three million gallons of heavily contaminated yellow-orange water into the Animas River, which feeds into the San Juan River and eventually the Colorado River. The tributaries provide water for cattle and crops in much of the Four Corners area, which is the nexus of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah.
Source: washingtontimes.com
The EPA agency’s chief, Gina McCarthy, described the spill as “heartbreaking” at a press conference in Durango, Colorado. She pledged to work with tribal leaders to control and manage the spill. The EPA under reported the disaster, shrugged it off with a mild apology, and had done nothing to correct what they caused. The EPA should be shut down and removed…the same penalty they would demand for anyone else having caused the same toxic disaster they created.
I don’t believe it. Government cheating Native American people. Shocking.
First.they take their country.now this.gov.always cheated the Native Americans.